2009 discovery of an unusual Roman lead sarcophagus at Gabii, located 11 miles east of Rome in modern-day Lazio. The University of Michigan's Gabii Project was launched in 2007 with the objective of studying and excavating the Latin city of Gabii, a city-state that was both a neighbor of, and a rival to, Rome in the first millennium BC. Located in the region of Italy once known as Latium, the site of Gabii was occupied since at least the tenth century BC until its decline in the second and third centuries AD.